Mary rolled over in the bed, luxuriating in the warmth of the blankets, and stretched. The clock radio on the bedside table was set to go off at nine, so she reached over lazily and switched it off. She didn’t have to check out of the room until midday so she was in no rush. A shower, a leisurely breakfast, and then she’d curl up with a good book. The only agenda she had was to wait for Matthew Bailey’s telephone call. She picked up the phone and ordered scrambled eggs, toast, coffee, orange juice and a copy of the Baltimore Sun, and then headed for the shower. In the bathroom she checked the roots of her dyed blonde hair and realised that she couldn’t go much longer without having it redone.
She was just finishing off her eggs when Bailey called. “M-M-Mary,” he stammered, “is everything okay?”
He sounded tense, but then he always did when talking to her. “Everything is exactly as it should be, Matthew,” she said. She gave him the address and telephone number of the house on Chesapeake Bay.
“We’re still going ahead?” he asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “The weather’s terrific here, and everybody else is already at the house. Why don’t you drop by Pat Farrell and check that he doesn’t have any problems before you come round to the house?”
“I will. I’ll check out the plane at the same time.”
“Good, that’s good.”
There was a pause on the line and then Bailey stammered: “M-M-Mary?”
“Yes?” she answered, tensing because she feared she was going to hear something uncomfortable.
There was another, shorter, pause. “Nothing,” he said. “I’ll see you.” The line went dead and Mary replaced the receiver. She was beginning to get a bad feeling about Bailey. She hoped he wasn’t getting cold feet.
Howard was in his office at 8 a.m. but Jake Sheldon had obviously beaten him to it. There was a message on Howard’s desk asking him to call Sheldon. He picked up the phone to call Sheldon’s office, but then had second thoughts and replaced the receiver. He walked down the corridor and pressed the bell at the side of the door to The Tomb. He waved at the surveillance camera above the door and the lock mechanism buzzed. He pushed open the door and stepped inside. The agent on duty was an old friend of Howard’s, a twenty-year man called Gene Eldridge. Eldridge had been sentenced to The Tomb for being unable to get his weight below 300 pounds, ostensibly for medical reasons but everybody knew it was because the Bureau top brass was trying to weed out all those agents who didn’t fit into its desired profile of young, healthy go-getters. He was a good-natured man, grey-haired with a florid expression, who had to have his suits tailor-made. He always wore a large handkerchief in his top pocket which he would produce with a flourish to mop his forehead at frequent intervals.
“Cole, how’s it going?” asked Eldridge. He was standing at the far end of the room wearing headphones. He waved Howard over. “Come and listen to this.” He slipped off the headphones and passed them to Howard. A man and a woman were talking on the line, though the man’s input consisted mainly of heavy-breathing and grunts. The woman, whose voice was husky and deep, was describing what she wanted to do with the man in graphic terms. “He’s a drug dealer the DEA are on to,” said Eldridge. “He makes one of these calls every morning.” The man on the line was building to a climax and Howard handed the headphones back to Eldridge, who unplugged them from the tape machine. “So what brings you back to The Tomb?” he asked.
“Tap on a house in Coronado, name of Schoelen. A call was made last night. Who was on then?”
“Eric Tiefenbacher,” replied Eldridge, wiping his forehead with his red cotton handkerchief. He sat down at the desk, his massive thighs squashing together like plump cushions. “Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s not a problem. He called Kelly Armstrong last night about a call made to the Schoelen home.”
“Yeah, the ice maiden. Eric’s had the hots for her for some time. Watch that one, Cole, she’s on the fast track. Her husband’s a big wheel in the Justice Department, isn’t he?”
“No idea. Can I hear the call?”
“Sure.” Eldridge pointed. “That’s the machine over there. Take the tape off and play it on the machine next to it. Just in case a call comes in while you’re playing it. You haven’t forgotten how to do it?”
Howard gave the overweight agent a withering look. “No, Gene, I haven’t forgotten.” Howard had spent seven months in The Tomb after the Bureau had first discovered his drinking problem. It wasn’t a time he liked to think about. He replaced the tape, and put the original on the machine Eldridge had indicated. He switched it on and the two agents listened to the conversation.
“Nice guy to be so worried about his dog,” said Eldridge. He handed the clipboard to Howard. “You wanna fill this in for me, too?”
Howard took the clipboard and wrote down the time the tape had been changed, followed by the tape counter number. “Like riding a bicycle,” he said, passing it back to Eldridge. “How long have you been here now, Gene?”
The big man shrugged. “Four years, I guess.”
“How come you don’t try to get out?”
“You mean why don’t I lose the weight? Hell, Cole, I’ve tried. I don’t even eat that much.”
Howard walked over to a wastepaper bin and looked down. There were several Burger King wrappings lying there, along with two empty packs of cookies. “Yeah, right,” he said.
“Besides, this isn’t too bad, you know? It’s regular hours, it’s clean, it’s safe, and it all goes towards my pension just the same. You were different, Cole. Your time in The Tomb was just a slap on the wrist, for me it’s an exile.” He wiped his forehead with the handkerchief. “So what’s with the tape?”
“I’m trying to track down the guy, I’m hoping that the conversation will tell me where he is.”
Eldridge looked at the clipboard. “According to the notes Tiefenbacher made, the call was placed from a public phone in Long Beach.”
“Yeah, that’s what it said, all right. Kelly’s out there.”
“But you think different?” asked Eldridge. Howard winked. “I suppose that means the ice maiden has rushed off on a wild goose chase?” Howard grinned. “What a fucking shame,” said Eldridge. “I guess she’ll be mighty pissed at young Tiefenbacher?”
“Okay if I borrow this tape for a while?” asked Howard.
“Hey, hold on a minute, Cole, you know as well as I do that the tape has to stay within the building. You can taint it as evidence if it leaves our jurisdiction.”
“It’s not evidence; we’re just trying to track down the guy, that’s all. I’ve a couple of experts I want to listen to the tape, and then I’ll bring it right back.”
“Today? You’ll bring it back today? On my shift?”
Howard nodded. “By lunchtime, Gene, I promise.” Back in his office, Howard dialled through to the Image Processing and Research Labs at Clayton Electronics. It was answered by McDowall, who sounded as if he was drawing on a cigarette. “This is Cole Howard, of the FBI,” said Howard. McDowall coughed and Howard smiled. “Is that a joint?” he asked.
“Jeez, you guys know everything,” said McDowall. “So what can we do for you, Special Agent Howard?”
Howard explained what he wanted and arranged to go round to the lab immediately. There was another message from Jake Sheldon on his desk, but Howard ignored it. Thirty minutes later he was in the laboratory with McDowall and Wyman. The sweet smell of marijuana still lingered in the air and McDowall had a slightly spaced-out look about him.
“That the tape?” asked Wyman.
Howard nodded and gave it to him. “The quality is good, but it’s the background I’m interested in.”
Wyman went over to a tape deck and motioned for the FBI agent to join him. “You’d better show me which bit you want,” he said.